Music Monday: The Jenner Addition

March 16th, 2009

When looking at legacy titles on the PC it is often easy to dismiss them as being nothing more then products of their time, with little to give to a post Crysis world. However when looking at the soundtracks of older PC games you can often find quite a few gems, such is the case with Mechwarrior 2: 31st Century Combat, and it’s expansion pack Ghost Bear’s Legacy. While the Mechwarrior games were very much a product of their time with both antiquated graphic and battle mechanics, their soundtracks have managed to age surprisingly well.

By putting the player in a Mech cockpit view throughout the game, a sense of immersion was undoubtedly felt by anyone that picked any of these titles up. The music, a mixture of both electronic and orchestral sounds, blended seamlessly throughout the game adding a needed sense of ambient sound throughout the rather bleak game world. The scale of the battles in the Mechwarrior games were often immense, but by today’s standards would be considered almost laughably bad, however the shear nature of the music added a little extra something that helped the game and the world feel real.

Excerpt from ‘Umber Walls’ - Mechwarrior 2: 31st Century Combat

With both soundtracks created by a duo of Activision Composers, Jeehun Hwang and Gregory Alper (who is notable for his contributions to the soundtrack of the Original Warcraft game), a continuity that is often lost between a game and it’s expansion, which is usually noticed with a change in composer in subsequent titles, was avoided. The music in the expansion, Ghost Bear’s Legacy, retains the same feel and sounds while creating new motifs and melodies that blend seamlessly with the narrative.

Excerpt from ‘Pyre Light’ - Mechwarrior 2: 31st Century Combat

Mech games have often been the punch line of many jokes over the years but when purely looked at as a product of it’s time, Mechwarrior 2 truly provided a fantastic game experience. With the ability to pilot multiple and diverse vehicles it is a genre that I wish still had a large presence on both PC and home console alike. With the soundtrack being as good as it is, the bleak future has never sounded so good.

Excerpt from ‘Destroy Orbital Platform’ - Mechwarrior 2: Ghost Bear’s Legacy

-Eric Wall